Although the topic of Search Engine Optimization has been mentioned elsewhere on the CharlesWorks websites,
we firmly believe it is by far the least truly understood component of
your web presence. Many individuals think they know about it, but in fact they simply don't. As a result, there are numerous scams and wasted millions of dollars spent in the name of Search Engine Optimization or SEO.

Search Engine Optimization is frequently
referred to simply as "SEO"

Search Engine Optimization, or quite simply "SEO", considers the balance
between how search engines work and what people search for, using search
technology readily available through search engines like Bing, Yahoo,
and Google, to name but a few. Optimizing a website involves editing its
content and HTML and associated coding to both increase its relevance to
specific keywords as well as to remove barriers to the indexing
activities of the search engines. CharlesWorks is very good at all
aspects of this process.

In addition to how SEO considers how search engines work and what people
search for, the latter above - making pages readable to search engines
and emphasizing key topics related to your content - is of the greatest
importance. SEO involves finding relevant keywords, determining their
popularity, assessing the amount of competition with similar websites,
and deciding which keywords can be best supported with quality content.

Cost for SEO services can vary. We at CharlesWorks do not charge higher
hourly rates for our clients just because we are working on Search
Engine Optimization. We do want you to know, however, that no search
engine optimization company can guarantee where your site will appear in
the natural search engine results.

Search Engine Optimization is a process. We have heard many buzz words
surrounding the SEO topic. At the top of the list is the "Guaranteed
Placement". No one can guarantee placement except the search engine
companies themselves. Think about this for a moment: can every
construction company be number one in the listings under construction?

We take a really down-to-Earth approach to the Search Engine
Optimization process. We have been doing this work since 1998 and have
more experience than most in this field. The Internet has grown
substantially since we first started, and therefore the quest for higher
search engine placement has risen dramatically. Competition has become
fierce.

At CharlesWorks, we provide exceptionally affordable SEO service in an
effort to get your websites indexed with the search engines. We get very
positive results with search engine placement.

Leave Search Engine Optimization "SEO"
to professionals like us who are experienced at it

As we indicated above, SEO considers how search engines work and what
people search for. Optimizing a website involves editing its content and
HTML. We are amazed at how many people will go into their website and
make coding changes by adding tons of particular words in an effort to
encourage search engines to find them. We have seen many sites banned by
the search engines for such practices. Sometimes that may yield an
immediate result but it is certainly not worth a quick result when
ultimately the site becomes banned.

There are also many, many scams out there involving search engine
optimization. The most blatant we see are those promising huge,
immediate increases in website traffic. As an example, if you are a
furniture retailer in the Keene, NH area (in the Northeastern United
States), quite frankly, you need not concern yourself about huge
increases in website traffic from India. The same is true in reverse.

Another situation we see is where the search engine optimization (SEO)
company charges in excess of $1,000 up front to get started. Think hard
about that. We can usually accomplish the process correctly for a few
hundred dollars.

If the SEO company claims ongoing monthly fees to get you found, again,
please be leery of the company. When we do the necessary work for you,
we charge you for the work as we go along. No ongoing, forever fees.

At CharlesWorks, we simply don't take advantage of our clients - most of
whom do not understand the intricacies and technology behind what we do.
We try to take the mystery out of all this and use our experience
coupled with mostly common sense to yield productive results.

A little Search Engine Optimization "SEO"
story about what we regularly deal with here

This is actually one of my favorites. Several clients a month write us
about these. They get an email in which the sender indicates he or she
found their website and it's not getting enough traffic. The sender may
go on to tell them that their site cannot be found for this reason or
that reason. They may even tell them that they see that the website has
little or no traffic to it. And, of course, that the sender is the
solution to this PROBLEM they have. It will only cost some (usually
fixed) amount on a monthly basis.

Many of our web clients have fallen victim to this - and have paid up to
thousands of dollars for this "help" that never really happened.

Now I'll ask you to use a little common sense
after giving you some facts to mull over

FACT #1Web visitors cannot see your overall web traffic. Unless
you let them do so, this information is only available through the
website's web server. Our servers (in fact pretty much ALL website
servers) keep web stats - data that shows visitors to your site -
meaning ALL visitors and traffic - on our servers - and these
individuals telling you that there is little or no traffic have
absolutely no idea whatsoever what your web traffic really is.

FACT #2Search engines can't give total website traffic.
Connected, in a sense, with fact #1, a search engine can ONLY tell you
(if you have gone through the process of setting up an account with them
to do so) what traffic it believes transpired as a result of being found
in ITS searches. It CANNOT tell you the total traffic to your site
(unless there is code in your web site that contacts the search engine
directly). For
example, Google has no data on how much traffic went to your site as a
result of Internet surfers directly typing in your domain name in the
address bar. Continuing the example, Google does not know how many
Internet surfers were directed to your site by Bing, or by Yahoo, or by
Ask, or by any of the other 200+ search engines people use to find
things on the web (again, unless there is code in the web site to tell
Google, in this example).

FACT #3All potential business counts. If we look at the three
major search engines - Google, Bing (powered by Microsoft), and Yahoo
(also powered by Microsoft) - it breaks down that Google is used by
roughly two thirds of the Internet users. I have actually had a couple
people tell me over the years that they only care about their Google
results. Put another way, that's like someone saying only two out of
three potential sales is worth pursuing. The fickle state of Internet
searches makes it even more important to work on being found well in ALL
the major search engines. At any moment the rules can be changed and a
website's placement can go away or change dramatically - in either
direction. In fact, this has happened many times - where one of the
search engines changes how it "sees" sites and sites are no longer found
until changes are made to them. All your eggs, so to speak, in one
search engine's basket can result in a loss of traffic.

FACT #4Junk backlinks hurts SEO. Tons of back links from junk
sites - and especially infected sites - appears to knock down a website's
standing over time. This seems to have been a common methodology
applied by many "SEO Experts" that has caused site banning and overall
lower search engine results. It is often referred to using terms like
"black hat SEO" and so on. This is really the only thing these
"experts" can do to try and get traffic without making any changes to
the website.

FACT #5Search engines are like artificial intelligence. Think
about it. I truly believe if you go to Bing many times every day and do
a search for an item, and never click on a choice, you've told Bing that
the web pages presented were NOT good choices for those words. So you
better take the moment to click on your site if you see it come up. On
the other side of that is the fact that if you do that continuously the
search engine "knows" that as well. Do it right and develop great
content so the search engine "sees" a great website!

FACT #6Sentences of the same repeated words hurts SEO. Repetition
of lists of words arranged in meaningless fashion and invisible text
will definitively hurt your standing. We had a client who came to us
because of not being found whatsoever and discovered he had a single
important word repeated in excess of 500 times at the bottom of his home
page. Taking those out and developing pertinent content resolved the
issue over time.

Whether your domain name is for personal use or for your business, we
hope you find the following tips to be helpful.

Keywords
Having words pertinent to your business in your domain are
increasingly important. Simplistically put, search engine
algorithms (the math formulae used to compute the importance or
value of words contained in your site) rank the importance of
web sites according to words. Many businesses use a domain name
to describe the name of their business and, in addition to that,
own domains which contain keywords which are present in their
website.

Association
If possible, you should use the name of your business as all or
part of one of your domain names. This will make it easier for
your clients or potential clients to remember you and to find
you on the web (like CharlesWorks.com - CharlesWorks is the name
of our business).

General Names
More general domain names are most likely already registered to
other businesses (of course it doesn't hurt to check with us
first). It's still a good idea to have more general name(s)
associated with your business as one of your domains (that's why
we also own HostingNH.net, which will take visitors to our
CharlesWorks.net site).

TLDs
Top Level Domains are the extensions of the domain, such as
.com, .net, .org, etc. The most popular TLDs are .com and .net.
If you find that your domain is already registered, you might
try for an alternate TLD (for example, RobinSnow.com was already
taken, so Robin acquired and uses RobinSnow.net).

Hyphenated Names
Although you can obtain them, we recommend not using hyphens for
your business domain name. Most people who are searching for
your site will not use a hyphen. You are better off to try a
different TLD or a variation of your domain name.

Variations
Variations can be an option if your general business name is
already registered (for example ScrapbookCabin.com was not
available to one of our clients, so at the time she registered
NHScrapbookCabin.com instead).